Absorbent articles, such as taped diapers or pant diapers, for example, may be manufactured by a process where discrete articles, such as a chassis of a taped diaper or a pant diaper including a topsheet, a backsheet, and an absorbent core, for example, are applied to one or more moving webs of components, such as continuous webs of front and rear waistbands, for example. In some processes, a continuous length of waistband web advancing in a machine direction may be cut along the machine direction into front and rear waistband webs. Prior to joining the two continuous lengths of front and rear waistband webs with discrete chassis, the front and rear waistband webs may need to be spaced apart from each other in a cross direction. For producing different size absorbent articles, the front and rear waistband webs may need to be cross-directionally spaced apart by different amounts. That is, as the size of the absorbent article increases, the spacing between the front and rear waistband webs may increase.
Some manufacturing processes utilize a web spacing device to control the cross-directional position of an advancing web. For example, an advancing web may define a machine direction centerline that is equidistant from longitudinal side edges of the web. The web spacing device may maintain the machine direction centerline of the web in line with a target cross-directional position. Such a web spacing device may also be used to shift the web such that the machine direction centerline of the web is shifted in the cross direction. However, such a web spacing device may be incapable of shifting the front and rear waistband webs far enough apart in the cross direction in preparation for joining the front and rear waistband webs with the discrete chassis. Furthermore, such web spacing devices may be configured for manufacturing absorbent articles of a predetermined size. As a result, separate web spacing devices may be needed for cross-directionally spacing front and rear waistband webs for manufacturing different size absorbent articles.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide a web spacing device that is capable of cross-directionally shifting an advancing web by a relatively large degree. Moreover, it would be beneficial to provide a web spacing device that is capable of cross-directionally shifting an advancing web or webs for the production of absorbent articles of various sizes.